


This Too Shall Pass

by TheLlamahaMarimba



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, John Winchester - Mentioned - Freeform, Oneshot (for now), implied that he was a dick, this was an english essay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-25
Updated: 2014-01-25
Packaged: 2018-01-10 00:54:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1152867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLlamahaMarimba/pseuds/TheLlamahaMarimba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cause who can tell/When the clock strikes twelve/If today's become tomorrow/Or if it's all just gone to hell</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Too Shall Pass

Every day he takes his brother to school.  
Every day Dean wakes up at the asscrack of dawn and flips on the light in Sam’s room. If you asked, he would tell you Sam was already up studying, but that’s not true – Sam likes his sleep. He’ll wait until he hears a groan and the rustle of sheets before padding down the creaky stairs and turning on the stove – every day he makes eggs. Sunny side up for Sammy, always with the yolk cut open in an X, just the way he likes.  
When Sam’s sloping shoulders and floppy hair finally make it to the table, Dean is grinding coffee, eggs already sliced and waiting on the counter beside a jelly jar glass of orange juice. It’s almost always a jelly jar; once as a joke Dean used an empty jar of peanut butter – one of the big JIF ones – and the bitchface Sam made was so good it got its own number on the bitchface list, #7: Dean, what the hell did you do to my orange juice.  
Every day he makes Sam’s lunch, always in the same lunch box Sam refuses to get rid of. It’s old and blue, Dean stole it from the lost and found because Sam didn’t have one in elementary and neither of them would risk telling Dad. Dean had painted it to make it look nicer, but still there’s spots on the outside where the rust shows through. He’d tried fixing the paint or getting a new one, but Sam was having none of it and Dean couldn’t say no.  
Sam was in middle school when Dean (almost) stopped making him lunch. Dean had gotten a raise at the shop; it was small, but suddenly they had some extra money.  
“I can actually take a day off every so often,” he had told Sam. “I could get a pie sometime, you can start buying lunch again—” he stopped, because Sam’s expression changed very suddenly and while it didn’t seem sad, Dean knew that face.  
“Does this mean you aren’t gonna make my lunch anymore?” he mumbled, and Dean could hear his disappointment. Dean didn’t say anything; he didn’t have to, just ruffled Sam’s hair and put some bread in the toaster. Sam got the meaning, and when Dean brought him home that day there was an apple pie waiting for them on the counter.  
Dean closes the lid on the same damn lunch box as Sam finishes pulling his backpack together, and they pile into the front seat of Dean’s Baby.  
If there’s anything you should know about Baby, she’s beautiful. A jet black 1967 Chevrolet Impala; bench seats, leather interior, crank down windows, and no CD player – a fact that dismayed Sam but gave great joy to Dean whose music selection was strictly tapes-only.  
The car was without a doubt Dean’s most precious material possession, and on the list of his favorite things she was second only to Sam. Baby had been his car his whole life, from the moment four-year-old Dean pointed at her and shrieked to Dad “That one!” all the way up to now, because she is his car. Not Dad’s, not anymore; and not the bank’s, either – Dean paid off that loan three years ago. He rebuilt her from the ground up after the crash; he takes care of her like she’s another Sam. Sometimes he’ll take her in and give her a quick tune-up during his lunch break down at the shop, or when he thinks Bobby’s not looking during working hours (he always is, but he pays Dean anyway). He knows every inch of that car. On cold days, he hears the rattle of the Legos he shoved in the vents as a kid, and he doesn’t have to look to know the little army man Sam stuck in the ashtray is still there, or the initials they carved into the underside of her body with dad’s hunting knife. Sam doesn’t see all that, but Dean does, and every time he fixes her every detail stays. Yeah, maybe her doors squeak, but you can be sure that how they are is exactly how Dean wants her to be.  
When he drops Sam off at school, Dean never waves from the window; he’s too cool for that. Sam laughs whenever he says so, but Dean sticks to it and Sam doesn’t argue. What he does is a little two-fingered thing that is definitely not a wave, and Sam flashes that megawatt smile right back as he walks in the door.  
He hates to leave. Leaving is putting Sam’s life into someone else’s hands, and that violates Dean’s core objective of Protect Sam. That always has been and – as far as Dean’s concerned – always will be his job; if there’s nothing else he can do, he keeps Sam safe. But Sam loves school, he always has, and Dean won’t take that away from him, not after everything that’s happened to them. Sam deserves to be happy, and if happiness means school, Dean will make it happen. After the crash – after Dad died – he dropped out of school so Sammy could stay in, and he hasn’t regretted it yet. Sam felt bad, Dean knew, but school wasn’t for him, never had been, and unlike Dean, Sam would actually benefit from the education. Dean was content with working at the garage for the rest of his life because he knew Sam would be okay.  
Every day he pushes the future out of his mind as he pops in a cassette, because he knows he’s going nowhere. He doesn’t have to remember the lyrics anymore, they just come naturally. He taps the drum beat absently on the steering wheel as he makes his way to the shop. He has a long shift today, and he’s looking forward to it because there’s a classic waiting for him in the garage that Bobby said he could fix up, because Bobby is possibly the greatest boss ever.  
Sometimes people ask Dean when he’s going to get a new car. (Once someone asked when he’s going to get a real car – he might have decked the guy.) Truth be told, the thought never occurs to him, because Baby isn’t just a car, she is His Baby. She’s safe and familiar – something he and Sam can’t always count on.  
Nothing ever hurts when he’s driving Baby, not even that mix of anger and pain he gets when he thinks about Dad. Somewhere in his mind, he thinks Baby protects him from all that. He would never, ever say it; not even to Sam, because Dean Winchester does not need protecting, he can take care of himself without anyone’s help. But he knows he’s not strong enough on his own, and he knows Sam won’t be around forever. In three years Sam will be leaving for college and getting a real job. Dean knows that, he’s always known that about Sammy. And as the “parent,” it’s Dean’s greatest achievement to get him there. But you would be hard pressed to get Dean to admit that his brother couldn’t do it just as easily alone, and it goes all the way back to Dean’s not strong enough. Sam’s smart and resourceful, he could get by without Dean hovering, but without Sam in his life Dean wouldn’t have anything to speak of.  
And maybe that’s why he needs Baby. Because even if he’s nothing without Sam, Dean will always have her.

**Author's Note:**

> Title and Summary from "This Too Shall Pass" by Danny Schmidt


End file.
